The Eighth Commandment (33 page)

“What am I?” Al demanded. “A chauffeur?”

“Do a good job,” I told him, “and we might give you a tip.”

“A small one,” Sally said.

We hadn’t been on the road more than ten minutes when she slowly slumped sideways against me. I put my arm about her shoulders, and she snuggled in. She was asleep almost instantly, breathing deeply with just the tiniest snore. She smelled of suntan oil, salt, and youth. Lovely.

Al noticed all this in the rearview mirror and grinned. “Conked out?” he asked softly.

“She’s entitled,” I said.

“You want to? Go ahead.”

“Not me,” I said. “I just don’t feel like it.” Which was a fib. I swore the moment I got home I’d take a hot shower and flop into bed.

We drove back to Manhattan in almost total silence, except when Al cursed at someone who cut him off. He pulled up outside my brownstone and I gently disengaged my arm from around Sally. I had to massage it.

“I didn’t go to sleep,” I said, “but my arm did.”

I moved away from Sally and she slid down until she was lying on the seat.

“Let her snooze,” Al said, turning around. “I’ll wake her up when I get her home.”

I leaned across the front seat, took his face in my palms, kissed him on the lips. “Thanks for a wonderful day,” I said. “It was super.”

“It had its moments, didn’t it? Do it again?”

“Just whistle,” I said, “and I’ll come a’running.”

“Dunk…” he said.

“What?”

He had a strange expression, all twisted. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

“Nothing,” he said. “It’ll go for another time.”

“Whenever you say.”

“Sally likes you; I can tell. You’re two of a kind: a couple of nuts.”

“You need women like us in your life.”

“Tell me about it,” he said. “You think I don’t know? I’ll wait here until you’re inside.”

I paused at my door to turn and give him a wave. He blew a kiss to me.

Old-fashioned. But nice.

I
SLEPT FOR ABOUT
four hours that Sunday evening, completely whacked out from the fresh air and the sun. Then I woke, staggered into the kitchen, drank about a quart of water, and peeled and ate a chilled tangerine. Then I went back to bed—what else? I think the expression is “plum tuckered.”

When I looked at myself in the mirror on Monday morning, I could see the sun lines of my maillot, but the burn was just a gentle blush. It didn’t hurt, and I didn’t think it was going to peel—which was a blessing. Just to make sure, I rubbed on some moisturizer. I hated to shed skin, like some old snake.

All in all, I was feeling pretty frisky. I made notes in my journal about what Al had told me of the money left by Orson Vanwinkle and Dolly LeBaron. Then I went out to pick up the morning paper and a brioche. Back home, I sliced open the brioche and slathered it with cream cheese and blackberry jam. That’s living!

It became a busy day, which suited my mood exactly. I wanted to be
doing.
When the phone rang, I grabbed it up, thinking it might be Al Georgio, thanking me for the most exciting, memorable afternoon of his life. But it turned out to be Archibald Havistock—which was okay, too.

“Miss Bateson,” he said, “I must apologize. With the confusion following my secretary’s death and my daughter’s, ah, recent incident, I fell behind in my personal accounts. I now see that I owe you for two weeks’ employment. I am sorry for the oversight. I have written out the check. Shall I mail it to you or would you prefer to pick it up?”

“I’d like to pick it up, sir,” I said promptly. “Mostly because I’d like the opportunity of talking to you for a few minutes. Would that be possible?”

“Of course,” he said in that deep, resonant voice. “I expect to be in all day. Come over whenever you wish.”

“And Ruby Querita,” I said. “May I talk to her, too?”

A brief pause, then: “Yes, she’ll be here.”

“Thank you, Mr. Havistock,” I said. “See you shortly.”

I dressed with deliberate care: a high-necked, long-sleeved white blouse with a calf-length black skirt, not too snug. If I had put my hair up in a bun and stuck a pencil through it, I figured I could have passed as J. P. Morgan’s secretary. That was the impression I wanted to give Mr. Havistock: a sober, industrious, dutiful employee. Little would he know that I had wolfed three frozen Milky Ways in one afternoon.

I took a final glance in the mirror and wondered if Sally could be right: a short, feathered hairdo might change my entire life. Nah.

I was at the door, ready to leave, when the phone rang again. That
had
to be Al. I dashed back.

“Mary Bateson?” a woman’s voice asked.

“Yes.”

“I have a collect call for you from Enoch in Arizona. Will you accept the charges?”

“Yes,” I said. “Oh, yes.”

“You are Mary Bateson?”

“I am.”

“Thank you. Go ahead, sir.”

“I did it!” he said triumphantly. “I called collect like you told me to.”

“Bless you, Enoch,” I said, laughing. “How
are
you?”

“If I felt any better,” he said, “I’d be unconscious. And you, Dunk?”

“Feeling fine,” I said.

Then I told him about my day at the beach, and he told me that he had been asked to write a monograph on Greek coinage of the Gaulish tribes for a numismatic journal. He sounded chipper—which was a delight.

“Enough of this chitchat,” he said. “I spoke to my friends in New York who might have handled sales by Archibald Havistock over the past five years. As far as I could learn, he sold mostly through three dealers, which is unusual in itself.”

“How so?”

“Why
three
dealers? Most serious collectors work through one man. You find someone you can trust, someone you like, and you stick with him.”

“Not all dealers are like you, Enoch. Maybe he was just shopping around for the best price.”

“Maybe. Anyway, from what I could learn, over a period of five years Havistock unloaded—are you ready for this?”

“How much?” I said eagerly. “Tell me!”

“Almost half a million.”

“Wow! He must have had some good stuff.”

“He did. The man apparently is, or was, a very dedicated and knowledgeable collector. Not a dog in the bunch. And, of course, the dealers did very well on what they bought from him or handled on consignment. So everyone gained. Still, it’s hard to understand.”

“What is, Enoch?”

“You spend a lifetime building up a fine collection and then you sell it off. So maybe he needed the money. But it’s sad to break up a collection like that. He’s not starving, is he?”

“Far from it.”

“Well, there you are. Dunk darling, do you think this will help you find the Demaretion?”

“I don’t honestly know,” I said slowly. “It’s another piece of information to put in my notebook, but what it means, I have no idea.”

“All right,” he said briskly, “that’s taken care of. What’s next?”

I cast about wildly for something he could do, knowing how important it was to him to be needed. Then I had an inspiration.

“There’s one thing you might do, Enoch,” I said. “Remember when a new client came into the shop, you always ran a credit check on him.”

“Of course,” he said. “It’s best to know the reputation of the person you’re dealing with. Is he trustworthy? Does he pay his bills? Do his checks bounce? Better to know beforehand.”

“Could you run a credit check on Archibald Havistock?”

“Havistock?” he said, shocked. “He is a wealthy, reputable man.”

“I know,” I said, “but still, I’d like to learn more about his financial condition.”

This was strictly make-work for Enoch. Al Georgio and Jack Smack had already investigated and told me about Havistock’s situation: his income, the fact that most of his assets were in his wife’s name. But it wouldn’t do any harm to get another opinion.

“I’ll try,” Enoch said doubtfully. “You’re wondering why he was selling off all those lovely mintages for the past five years?”

“That’s it,” I said gratefully. “Just a woman’s idle curiosity.”

“To tell you the truth,” he said, “I’m curious myself. I’ll see what I can do, Dunk dear.”

After we hung up, with vows of love, I started out again. This time I made it.

It was a hazy, dazy day with an odor of sulfur in the air, and I immediately decided against walking over to the East Side. I caught a cab that was mercifully air-conditioned and smelled only of dead cigars.

When I first moved to New York, going from the West Side to the East was like going from Calcutta to Paris, but things had changed and were changing. The city (Manhattan) was becoming one big potpourri of boutiques, antique shops, unisex hair styling salons, and Korean greengrocers. In another five years, I figured, Broadway would have a branch of Tiffany’s and Park Avenue would have massage parlors.

Ruby Querita let me into the Havistock apartment. As usual, she was dressed like one of the witches from
Macbeth
, but she gave me a defrosted smile and I touched her arm.

“How are you, Ruby?” I asked.

“Healthy,” she said. “God be thanked. And you?”

“Hanging in there,” I said. “Mr. Havistock is expecting me. Would you tell him I’m here?”

“I’ll tell,” she said, nodding.

“Anyone else home? Mrs. Havistock? Natalie?”

She shook her head.

“Well, after the lord of the manor is finished with me, could you and I have a little talk?”

I had never noticed before how piercing her eyes were.

“Yes,” she said. “All right. I’ll be in the kitchen.”

“Your office,” I said, trying a mild jape that fell flat.

Archibald Havistock rose to his feet when I entered the library. He motioned me to the chair facing that enormous partners’ desk. It had deep kneeholes, like a tunnel, running through the two linked desks. You could hide a body in there.

We exchanged pleasantries, and he gave me a plain white envelope. That was so like him. He preferred not to hand over a naked check. Too crass. Money should be chastely concealed.

“Thank you, sir,” I said, tucking the envelope into my shoulder bag without glancing at the contents. I could be as circumspect as he. “I wish I felt I was doing more to earn it.”

He sat erect in his leather swivel chair. What a magisterial man! I swear that in a black robe he could have passed for a chief justice. But he was wearing a suit of gray flannel with a silken sheen, light blue shirt with white collar and cuffs, a subdued foulard tie. That silvered hair! Those icy azure eyes! Oh, God, I raved in my mind, if he was only thirty years younger or I was thirty years older.

“No progress?” he asked with a small smile.

“Well…” I said, not wanting to admit I was a total dolt, “I have made progress if that means collecting a great deal of information. But I haven’t yet been able to put it all together, see a logical pattern to everything that’s happened.”

“I’m sure you will,” he said. “My wife has great confidence in you.”

His wife did? Did that imply that he didn’t? Or was this my day for a paranoia attack?

He swung gently back and forth in his swivel chair. He was wearing a cologne—not Aramis; I know that—but something subtle and stirring. Maybe, on another man, I might have thought it a bit much, but he had the presence to carry it off. My impression was that he didn’t give a tinker’s dam about what other people might think of how he dressed, talked, lived. He had achieved a kind of serenity.

“Tell me,” he said, “how do you keep track of everything you’ve learned? All in your mind?”

“I wish my memory was that good,” I said, “but it isn’t. No, I make notes in a journal. And add everything new I learn.”

“Very wise,” he said, nodding. “I keep a daily diary of business dealings, telephone conversations, conferences, and so forth. It can be very useful.”

“I hope my notebook will be. Right now I can’t make any sense out of it at all.”

A small prevarication. It was beginning to come together.

“You said there was something you wished to speak to me about, Miss Bateson. Something special?”

“Just one question, sir. You may not want to answer it. Could you tell me how much you were paying Orson Vanwinkle?”

He stared at me and didn’t answer immediately. Then: “This is important to your investigation?”

“I think it is.”

“I see no reason why I shouldn’t answer. He was paid eight hundred dollars a week. By check. So there is a paper trail if the police or anyone else wants to investigate. Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know,” I said fretfully. “Except that he seemed to be living on a scale far beyond eight hundred a week.”

“I was aware of that,” Mr. Havistock said, “and cautioned him about it more than once. But it did no good. As I think I told you, he was not a solid man. But he was my nephew, and I didn’t wish to cast him adrift. And, I must say, he fulfilled his duties. But I warned him about his debts.”

I didn’t mention that dear old Horsy left a hundred grand when he shuffled off this mortal coil. Mr. Havistock would learn that soon enough—but I preferred he didn’t hear it from me. I stood up.

“Thank you, sir. I appreciate your making time with—” Now there was a Freudian slip. But I caught it, I hoped! “Making time for me,” I finished. “I’d like to talk with Ruby for a few minutes, if I may.”

He rose and proffered his hand. “Of course. As long as you like.”

We shook hands and exchanged distant smiles. His clasp was exactly like the man: cool, dry, firm.

When I found my way to the kitchen, I discovered Ruby Querita hunched over the stainless steel sink, snapping string beans and weeping. I put an arm about her shoulders.

“Ruby,” I said, “what’s the matter?”

She shook her head, not answering.

“Your brother?” I asked.

She nodded. “Life is unfair,” she said.

I wanted to say, “So what else is new?” but I didn’t.

“Ruby,” I said, “you can be responsible for your own life, but not for other people’s. Isn’t that true?”

She nodded dumbly, ran cold water over the beans in a colander, and let them drain in the sink. Then she dried her hands on a kitchen towel and we sat down at the table. She had stopped crying.